The first five lopsided losses to the Red Sox this season suggested that the White Sox simply had no answers for a resurgent Boston team that has taken the American League by storm over the last two months.
Where as Thursday's grueling and gruesome 13-inning heartbreaker to seal a season series sweep simply found the White Sox exhausting every single possible pitching answer, and finding all of them wanting. They also lost their newly acquired catcher, Joey Bart, to a broken finger on a hit-by-pitch, and burned through seven relievers ahead of a crucial weekend showdown with the (tied for) second place Guardians, in a game that extracted maximum punishment.
The Sox trade deadline work seemed to be aimed at reducing their reliance on Erick Fedde, yet there he was on the mound when Caleb Durbin rifled his backdoor splitter back up the middle to plate the extra runner in the 13th, almost mercifully ending things before a rare getaway night game reached the 4 1/2-hour mark.
The newly acquired arms didn't impress, as Luis Castillo went from retiring the first seven hitters he faced to departing a 5-5 tie after four innings, and Huascar Brazobán's bid for a four-out save was undone by Wilyer Abreu's two-strike, two-out game-tying ninth inning single on a changeup below the knees. But on a night where leads of 4-0 in the third, 7-5 in the sixth, 9-7 in the 10th, 10-9 in the 11th, and 11-10 in the 12th all went by the wayside, the issues with handling the Red Sox lineup went far deeper than the last week of White Sox pro scouting work.
With Castillo's short outing, Grant Taylor using 40 pitches to deliver six outs, Jordan Hicks and Bryan Hudson already used just to get the game to the sixth, and Sean Newcomb and Chris Murphy both coming off longer outings on Wednesday, both extra inning leads were erased on the watch of Trevor Richards serving as the only rested option.
Richards walked three (one intentionally) in the Red Sox ninth, with an Andruw Monasterio RBI double off the Green Monster (he drove in five in this series) setting up Anthony Seigler's game-tying sacrifice fly. Richards lived and died in the strike zone in the 11th, but Ceddanne Rafaela greeted him with a leadoff single before Abreu lifted a no-doubt game-tying sac fly to center, and Chris Murphy had to come and win a left-on-left battle with Jarren Duran to strand two runners with a routine fly out to center to send the game to the 12th.
For someone who threw 27 pitches on Wednesday night, Murphy was relatively crisp, except for briefly losing all semblance of control in the early portion of the 12th. A very wild pitch to the backstop set up Jake Rogers to re-tie the game 11-all, but Murphy should have had a bigger margin to work with.
Tristan Peters greeted Bryan Bello's entry into the game in the top half of the inning with a sharp single to push extra runner Drew Romo to third. Braden Montgomery going from a 3-0 count to a fielder's choice that couldn't get Romo home was dispiriting, but Sam Antonacci singled over the drawn-in infield to put the Sox ahead, and Chase Meidroth's third hit of a monster night could have set up bases loaded with one out for Munetaka Murakami. Instead, Montgomery sent home on Meidroth's single that went right to Duran in short-medium left, and was tagged out without so much as reaching home on his slide.
With a base now open, Murakami was intentionally walked so that Bello could get a right-right matchup with Miguel Vargas, who rolled over a middle-middle cutter to leave 'em loaded. If that felt like a waste, take a look at the stat line Meidroth put together out of the leadoff spot.
Reaching base fives time in all, the first of Meidroth's paid of two-run shots over the Monster in left came to open the scoring, as Sox hitters dragged starter Ranger Suarez through a 42-pitch, four-run third that ended his night early. And Meidroth's second clout came on the sixth-pitch of a 10th-inning battle against All-Star closer Aroldis Chapman.
None of it seemed destined to hold, as both Brazobán and Richards picked up blown saves before Fedde took the loss, whereas Castillo got five runs of support and couldn't leave with a lead. His fastball sat around 96 mph and dictated at-bats early, but he didn't have the secondaries to defang the bottom of the Red Sox order. Connor Wong stuck with a two-strike slider on the outer half for a two-run shot to left in the third, and Monasterio (another good swing on an outer half slider) and Seigler (grooved full-count heater) dinged him for RBI doubles in the fourth.
At least on a night like this, he simply fit in with the whole team.
*Bullet points:
*Bart departed the game after taking a 97.7 mph Erik Miller four-seamer off his left hand. The White Sox say he has a fracture in his fifth metacarpal, and is being further evaluated. Edgar Quero is being recalled, a source confirmed.
*There were points of this game where the Red Sox seemed exceedingly generous. A Rafaela throwing error trying to cut down Randal Grichuk at third pushed another run across on Colson Montgomery's third inning RBI single, and Justin Slaten's throw up the first base line scored two on Braden Montgomery's two-out chopper back to the mound in the fifth. Duran trying needlessly to advance to third on a not-so wild pitch ended a Red Sox threat in the eighth, and Durbin was thrown out trying to steal second to end the ninth.
*Vargas played a helluva third base all night, and gave 110 percent effort to score on a shallow Colson Montgomery go-ahead sacrifice fly in the 11th, but stranded the based loaded with a groundout in the 12th as part of an 0-for-6 night with three strikeouts. Murakami replicated the same batting line.
*The Red Sox are 31-5 in their last 36 games. Usually this means it's time to start playing on a higher difficulty setting.
*Brenton Doyle singled, stole a base and scored in the fourth before swapping out for his platoon partner Peters, so at least one trade acquisition had an OK night.
*Antonacci also had three hits and two driven in, whereas Colson Montgomery reached base and drove in a pair himself, but struck out on a low sinker as the White Sox went scoreless in the 13th.
